


like a comet in the cold

by iridiumring92



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Breathplay, Confessions, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars, Sexual Content, Spoilers, enemies to lovers energy, light alcohol use, recovering Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:21:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25456915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridiumring92/pseuds/iridiumring92
Summary: While Dimitri has broken free of the initial chains of his psychosis, the dead still haunt him through his sleep and waking hours. Felix stays by his side, at first to rein him in, and then to keep him close.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Kudos: 33





	like a comet in the cold

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this so goddamn long ago what am i even doing lmaoo
> 
> dima is kind of in between going dark and recovering in this one. he's getting better, but he still hallucinates and lashes out.
> 
> (there's some slightly sketchy consent in the middle as felix has been drinking)

_drifting like a comet in the cold, I cannot feel at all_

_I fade to black and set out on my own_

_\- Alter Bridge, “Farther Than The Sun”_

_-_

Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd is on his hands and knees, his muscles tensed as if he’s waiting for a blow. He squeezes shut his one good eye, but somehow, he still can’t seem to erase the hazy images of figures standing before him, their voices sharp in his ears. He’s shouting back at them—at first it was in an attempt to make them understand, but now he doesn’t even know what he’s saying, only that his voice is tearing from his throat.

“—mitri. Dimitri.” Hands land on his shoulders, and the illusion is gone, followed by a chaser of suffocating silence and uncontainable rage. _Who_ the hell walked in on him while the dead were bombarding him with their questions? Who heard what he shouted back?

Dimitri’s hand is open before he can fully make sense of the situation, and a sharp crack splits the air, along with a grunt. He knows he’s calculated correctly, knows his hand has found its mark. He has no idea who it is he’s hit.

The person’s face slowly emerges from the haze in his vision.

Felix.

_Shit._

“What kind of dream were you having?” Felix asks, his tone bored, not even reaching up to rub the reddening side of his face where Dimitri’s slapped him. “And didn’t anyone ever teach you that sleeping on the floor is bad for your back?”

Dimitri shoves Felix’s hands away from his shoulders. “You really thought I was sleeping?”

“No, no, it’s perfectly logical to be shouting absolute nonsense into the floor for no apparent reason when you’re awake,” Felix says, his words laced with sarcasm. “Dimitri, if you know you might do something like that, why don’t you at least close the door?”

Dimitri glances at the door to his room. It’s closed. He doesn’t remember leaving it open, anyway.

“It’s closed because _I_ closed it, you half-wit,” Felix snaps. “It wasn’t before. People were looking this way.”

“Get out of my room.” This time, Dimitri’s voice is a low growl, no pretense of politeness or tolerance in his voice. It’s the voice he hears from himself when his bloodlust, his need for revenge, has flared up. When he’s not completely seeing red and losing all his senses to it. Some people, upon hearing it, are frightened. He knows this. He half expects Felix to be startled, to get up and leave him alone immediately, but Felix doesn’t budge.

He reaches out and puts a hand on Dimitri’s bicep, his grip like steel as his fingers snake around the muscle. “You look exhausted.”

“Sleep is hard to come by,” Dimitri says.

“You also . . .” Felix trails off, and when Dimitri looks up, he sees Felix’s gaze tracing the planes of his face, the smallest scars, the curves of his lips and jaw. It’s an unnerving feeling, even having one of his oldest friends study him like this. But perhaps the last five years have done that to him. He pushes people away rather than allowing them to get close, no exceptions.

“Felix,” Dimitri says through his teeth. “Let go of me.”

“I think you need rest.” Felix presses his lips together and looks Dimitri in the eye, which is somehow even more uncomfortable. “All you’ve been doing of late is making people nervous and telling them to get out of your sight. You could make yourself useful, boar prince.”

Dimitri tries to shake Felix’s hand off with one violent lash of his arm. “You bastard, it’s ‘Your Highness,’ and don’t you forget—”

Felix’s grip tightens on his upper arm, and with his other hand, he presses a finger to Dimitri’s lips, silencing him. “Shut up. This is exactly what I mean. On your feet.”

“No.” Dimitri hates that his voice suddenly feels like it’s on the verge of breaking. One step too far, one push in the wrong direction . . . He needs to let himself recover, after this cacophony of voices, or he’ll break down. He doesn’t want Felix to see him shatter.

“Get _up,_ you worthless—”

Dimitri throws a punch, which Felix somehow— _somehow_ —dodges, and, in his blind rage, Dimitri swings again, a blow that Felix intercepts. He catches Dimitri’s fist in his palm and pushes him to the floor all in one swift movement. Dimitri’s hand is trapped under Felix’s, and Felix’s knees frame his hips. It’s both infuriating and intimate, and Dimitri hates Felix even more for putting them in such a position.

“I know you’re supposed to be ridiculously strong, but don’t forget that I’ve been training, too,” Felix says, “and I’m faster than you ever were. The fact that you’re just swinging mindlessly in a fit of anger doesn’t do anything for your accuracy.”

“You’re a demon,” Dimitri hisses.

“That’s what they call you, actually,” Felix says. “The ‘one-eyed’ demon, in fact. What do you think? Is it accurate?”

“Felix,” Dimitri says, his voice deadly again, “if you stay where you are much longer, I will rip out your throat.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me,” Dimitri says, but he realizes, too late, that he’s trembling. His strength is leaving him in favor of fear. Sorrow. He hates this part. He wishes Felix would just leave.

Felix seems to understand what’s happening, as he glances sideways, at the hand that has Dimitri’s wrist trapped. “Dimitri,” he begins, his voice soft, softer than Dimitri has ever heard it.

“Leave me alone,” Dimitri says. His voice shakes. It’s too late— _it’s too damn late,_ he’s going to break down right here, pinned to the floor of his room underneath Felix, and there’s not one goddamn thing he can do about it. “ _Leave me alone._ ”

“Dimitri, wait, what—” Confusion surfaces on Felix’s face, and Dimitri half wants to slap him again to rid him of that expression, but his whole body feels weak now. He’s crumbling, he’s falling, he can’t stop it.

Dimitri swears under his breath, and he lies back against the floor, limbs going slack, giving up. He squeezes his eye shut, but the tears are hot against the back of his eyelid, and they slip out, tracking down the side of his face, into his hair. If Felix had left just a few moments earlier—

“Dimitri.” Felix’s hand strokes his cheek, thumb brushing his cheekbone. Dimitri hasn’t known Felix to be anything but caustic since Glenn’s death, and right now he wishes Felix would go back to that—wishes he’d be something other than _tender,_ the way he’s acting right now, no matter how long they’ve known each other or what they’ve been through together. “You’re okay. This will pass. You’re gonna get through it.”

Dimitri’s whole body shakes with his suppressed sobs, and he tries to keep his hands by his sides, so he doesn’t rip the floorboards or his fingernails or his clothes. He’s survived solely on his strength throughout the past several years, and he doesn’t know how to rein it in anymore. Post-episode weakness or no, he could probably still fling Felix through a window if the urge arose.

“I hate you,” he says through his teeth without looking at Felix. “I hate you for seeing me like this.”

“Yeah, okay, Dima, I know,” Felix says without missing a beat. He swipes a strand of hair out of Dimitri’s eye. The gesture is both flippant and deliberately caring.

The shaking subsides after a while, and Dimitri nudges Felix, not sure if a shove is going to send him across the room. “I want to lie down. In my bed.” As soon as he says this, Felix moves away without question, as if he already trusts Dimitri not to do anything ridiculous, despite Dimitri’s attempt to punch him earlier. “Felix . . . How long has it been?”

“How long has what been?”

“This . . . this episode. How long has it been going on?” Dimitri stands on shaky legs and strips off his jacket, casting it to the floor before sitting down on the bed. Outside, it’s dark. He wonders how long it’s been dark. How long he’s been out of his mind.

Felix looks mildly uncomfortable for a moment, but the trace of discomfort is so fleeting that anyone who hadn’t been around him for this many years might have missed it. “By my count, four hours.”

“ _Four hours_?” Dimitri grits his teeth. “Felix. You didn’t have to stay this long. You should have just left me—”

“Oh, right, I’m supposed to leave you here alone while you’re screaming and shaking? You can think again, boar prince.” Felix crosses his arms over his chest, and Dimitri winces at the nickname, but he doesn’t feel the impulse to punch Felix over it this time.

Dimitri takes off his boots and peels back the sheets. Before he lies down, he starts to unbutton his shirt, since he doesn’t sleep in one on a regular basis. Actually, it’s easiest for him not to sleep in anything at all, because his clothes often feel constricting when he wakes up in the middle of the night. But he doesn’t need to get undressed in front of Felix. Even the thought of taking his shirt off with Felix standing not five feet away makes him feel stupidly self-conscious.

He tosses the shirt on the floor and stretches out on the bed, his muscles straining after being tensed for so long. Felix is still standing across the room, arms crossed. Dimitri no longer knows what to say to him. Is he going to stand there indefinitely, watching like a guard until Dimitri is sound asleep?

“Felix,” Dimitri ventures. “Come sit, would you?”

With a roll of his eyes and a growl of “Fine,” Felix crosses the room to sit at the end of the bed. He still looks put off, as if sitting here, on Dimitri’s bed, could be any worse of a job than sitting _on_ him while he lay half-conscious on the floor.

Dimitri tries to relax, but he can feel Felix’s eyes on him. He wonders whether he should try to endure this until he falls asleep or if he should call Felix out on it, but before he can think much about it, Felix speaks again.

“Dimitri. Is your eye . . .”

Blinking up at Felix, Dimitri remembers he’s still wearing his eye patch, his hair still pulled back into the small tail he wears it in now. He should have taken the patch and the hair tie out before he tried to sleep, but it’s sort of hard to remember his nightly routine with Felix watching him.

“Oh. That. It’s healed, don’t worry. I just forgot to take this off.” He reaches up to pull the strap of the eye patch over his head, avoiding strands of hair threatening to get caught in it. He doesn’t look at Felix as he does it, but he practically feels Felix wince. Maybe he should have warned him first. Or maybe Felix would have just interpreted that as an insult.

He’s seen it, but not often, because it makes him think of the way he used to look and sets off a whole new wave of self-hatred and nausea. _I deserve this_ , he thought the first time, looking at the puffy, still-healing skin. Now he’s a little more used to it, but the sight still jars him sometimes, when he forgets to look for the scar.

Dimitri is about to pull out the hair tie when he realizes Felix is leaning closer to him, one hand braced where his shin lies beneath the sheets. There’s a look of pain on his face.

“It’s worse than you were expecting, isn’t it?” Dimitri starts to say, but halfway through the sentence, Felix leans over him, cupping his face in his hands. His legs rest on either side of Dimitri’s hips, and though Dimitri doubts Felix intended anything about the gesture to be intimate—like when he’d pinned him to the floor—it still brings heat to his face.

“Had I been able to take this wound for you,” Felix says, “I would have, gladly, but it doesn’t make you any less striking.”

“Felix?” Dimitri swallows, cupping Felix’s hand in his own to move it away from his face. “You’re not going to tell me it makes me look like the animal I am?”

Felix pulls back, scowling. “Well, of course it makes you look . . .” He hesitates, and the fire seems to go out of him. “It makes you look like Dimitri.”

“Felix, what are you talking—”

“You might be an animal, but it seems . . . too cruel.” Felix bites his lower lip, then seems to realize he’s doing it and stops. “You never asked for such a wound, did you? And besides, it’s not as if you’re unattractive this way.” Dimitri studies him, and Felix blushes under the pressure of his gaze. “ _What_ , Dimitri?”

Dimitri swallows hard. “If I asked to kiss you,” he says, his voice breathy, “what would you say?”

Felix’s eyes widen just slightly, and his blush deepens, which only makes Dimitri want to kiss him more. “Well, who am I to deny the prince of Faerghus?” he says, and a tiny smirk pulls at the edge of his mouth, betraying his real answer.

“Then please,” Dimitri says. “Come here.”

His kiss seems to steal the breath from Dimitri’s lungs. Dimitri grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him in closer, and Felix makes a small noise into his mouth before kissing him in earnest again. His hands are in Dimitri’s hair, pulling gently at strands and then not so gently when Dimitri sucks Felix’s lower lip into his mouth. His hips press insistently into Dimitri’s as their kisses go on longer and become more heated. Felix’s tongue is in Dimitri’s mouth, Dimitri moans low and soft as Felix kisses him harder.

“Felix,” Dimitri gasps when Felix ducks his head to bury his face in his neck and his bare shoulder. He kisses and sucks and bites the skin, and Dimitri’s hands tighten around his hips. He arches up into Felix, at the mercy of all the pleasure this is giving him.

“I want to hear you say my name like that again,” Felix whispers against his ear, “but not too loud. If you let anyone know about this, I’ll kill you.”

“A punishment I’d gladly accept,” Dimitri says, out of breath, “but I don’t wish for anyone else to know, either.” He loosens his grip on Felix’s hips. “Felix, I’m afraid I . . . I don’t have enough control over my strength for this. If I hurt you . . .”

“You don’t have to worry about hurting me.” Felix runs his tongue over his lower lip, and Dimitri barely reins in the urge to kiss him again, roughly and spontaneously. “I’m used to getting hurt. I don’t care.”

“But I . . .”

“Dimitri,” Felix says, frowning again. “Don’t. Okay? It’s late. I could stay here tonight, with you, if you’ll let me.”

“Hold a moment.” Dimitri, still trying to catch his breath, reaches out and lays a hand on Felix’s thigh. “What is this about?”

Felix presses his lips together. “You want to talk about this before anything happens?” he asks, clearly displeased. “I’d rather just get it over with and talk later.”

_That’s not a problem,_ Dimitri’s body is telling him. He just wants to feel Felix against him for whatever length of time they can secure. They don’t have to waste time talking. That can happen later, like Felix said. _Later._

Dimitri draws Felix into another deep, slow kiss, and Felix sighs. “Yeah, that’s what I mean,” he says, his voice husky. “Just like that.”

Dimitri unbuckles the guard Felix wears over his chest, then pulls at his cloak and jacket before allowing Felix space to slip the shirt over his head. They’re both bare from the waist up now, and when Dimitri pulls Felix back to him, he gasps at the warmth of Felix’s skin against his.

He runs his hands over the span of Felix’s back, feeling the dips of muscle there, as Felix kisses him. It’s as if Felix means to steal any sort of words from his mouth. His kisses are practically bruising, but Dimitri adjusts, sliding his tongue over Felix’s lower lip, pulling him closer any chance he can get.

His fingers dip beneath the waist of Felix’s pants, finding more warm skin there, and he fumbles for the belt when Felix groans. Several hasty, clumsy movements later, Felix’s clothes are on the floor, and Dimitri can behold all of him in the scarce light of the room, the pale curves of his skin.

“You’re . . .”

Dimitri reaches out to feel the curve of one of Felix’s hips under his thumb, and Felix makes a noise, his hips pushing into Dimitri’s hand. Dimitri looks up and sees that his face is contorted in something between pleasure and restraint.

“Felix, you don’t have to hold yourself back with me.” He tries to pull Felix down to him, but Felix resists him, opening his eyes to glare.

“No. I’m not going to just be at your mercy. Your turn,” Felix says, straddling him again so he can go for Dimitri’s belt.

Dimitri doesn’t fully understand what Felix means until he’s lying naked on the bed. He feels all too vulnerable, and at the same time, his nerves are humming. He wants this so badly and is so equally terrified that he doesn’t think he could find words for it if he tried.

When Felix kisses him again, he moans, caught up in all the sensations. He’s felt numb for so goddamn long that this is overwhelming. Felix shushes him, but Dimitri can’t seem to silence his own voice. He arches up again, and Felix wraps a hand around him, strokes him until he’s fully hard.

“ _Felix_ . . .”

Felix silences him with a kiss and pushes him down into the mattress, taking both of them into his hand. Dimitri shifts his hips against Felix’s hand, his voice escaping him in a sound like a sob when Felix moves. He echoes Felix’s movements as best he can, his fingers digging into Felix’s back. Felix puts his mouth on Dimitri’s in an effort to keep him quiet. It only works for a moment—Dimitri moans into their kisses, too, and after a while Dimitri can hear Felix groan low in his throat.

Dimitri holds tight to Felix, tipping his head back as he senses he’s nearing the edge. “Oh _goddess_ Felix, don’t stop, please, I’m so— _ah_ —so _close_ , Felix _please_ —”

He comes hard and fast and cries out, feeling his nails dig sharply into Felix’s skin as he strains against the sensation. Distantly, he hears Felix groan, feels him spill over onto his exposed skin. The high tapers off. Dimitri collapses, spent, back into the sheets.

He’s so exhausted from the buildup and the high that he nearly falls asleep right there, but Felix shakes him awake. “Hey. Don’t pass out on me now, you hear me? Let me clean you up first, you’re a mess.”

Dimitri doesn’t even dare look down at himself. He can feel it, and in the back of his mind he senses a prick of embarrassment, for letting Felix see him like this among other things. Instead he rolls over and glances toward Felix in the half-darkness, and he gasps.

Felix turns to look at him. “What?” he snaps, some cutting remark surely on the tip of his tongue, but Dimitri doesn’t let him get that far.

“Felix, your _back_ . You—does it sting? I’ll gladly put some ointment on it for you.” Dimitri shivers at the thought that, in the heat of his passion, he left marks on Felix’s back deep enough, in some places, to draw _blood_. Would Felix ever consent to coming to bed with him again? More importantly, how could he allow himself to go to bed with anyone, if this was bound to be the result?

“No, it’s all right.” Felix brings a damp cloth back to the bed and wipes Dimitri’s skin clean with it. “You can just . . . since I can’t reach them well myself . . .”

He turns his back to Dimitri, who wipes away the few traces of blood that have welled in the deepest scratches. The rest of them are mostly raised red marks trailing from Felix’s shoulder blades to his hips. Dimitri guesses he’ll have more bruises in the morning, too.

“I’m so sorry, Felix.”

“Please. Spare me your crocodile tears, boar prince. Do you want me to stay with you or not?” Felix drops the cloth to the floor where their clothes lie and turns back to Dimitri and the bed.

“Would you?” Dimitri asks, his voice low.

“Of course I would. You’re the prince, and we just . . . Well. It would be rude of me to leave anyway, unless you ordered me to.” Felix climbs back into the bed, and Dimitri steals one last look at his elegant bare body. After that, he curls up against him, trying not to think about the wounds he’s left, and allows himself to fall into sleep.

* * *

Dimitri is distracted.

Felix, unsurprisingly, was gone in the morning, leaving Dimitri to wake up to a half-empty bed, the sheets strewn every which way. He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Felix or the night they shared since, and it’s keeping his mind off things he really should be thinking about.

He spends the days after seeking out Felix, then feeling too embarrassed to actually approach him when he notices Felix making no effort to acknowledge his presence.

One night, though, Dimitri is at the door to his room when he hears someone say his name. He’s been lost in his thoughts, and the sound startles him. He looks up.

It’s Felix, a rare, strange look in his eyes. “Did I scare you, _Dimitri_?” he asks, a smile pulling at the edge of his mouth. He braces one hand on the wall beside Dimitri.

The soldiers had been drinking earlier, Dimitri knows, as a celebration of their survival of their last battle. He’d escaped the festivities, as had Byleth. He doesn’t even know where Byleth disappeared to. He finds that he’s surprised Felix didn’t bypass the celebration entirely to go train.

He’s also surprised at the slight flush in Felix’s cheeks and the way he says his name so outright. He didn’t think Felix liked the way it felt to be intoxicated.

“Felix, are you . . .”

“Shh. Come here.” A heartbeat later, Felix is pressing him into the wall, lips brushing his in a slow kiss. Dimitri, surprised, pushes him away. “Are you really going to tell me no tonight?”

Dimitri looses a breath and kisses Felix on the corner of his mouth, a gesture that leads Felix to chase after him for another kiss. “Felix,” he whispers. “I always want you, but right now you’re—”

“If you want me, then why don’t you take me to your bed?” Felix asks. “Seems simple to me.”

“I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret in the morning.”

“Oh, hush,” Felix says, dismissive. He puts a hand on Dimitri’s hip. “It’s not like I drank _that_ much. I’m feeling pretty rational right now.”

Dimitri pushes him away again. “Then why have you been avoiding me for the past two weeks?”

“I could ask the same of you.” Felix glares at him. “But we can talk later. Right now I just want to put my hands on you.”

Dimitri’s resolve is weak, and he wants every moment with Felix that he can possibly get. He brings Felix into his room, locks the door, guides him to the bed. Within a few minutes, their clothes are on the floor, and Felix is trying to keep Dimitri quiet again. Felix might be the intoxicated one, but Dimitri loses all his inhibitions when he has Felix in his bed.

Afterward, they lie together, Felix resting his head on Dimitri’s chest. Dimitri runs a hand absentmindedly over the still-healing gouges he left on Felix’s back the last time they were together. Felix makes sleepy, satisfied sounds into his skin and doesn’t protest.

* * *

More nights pass, without Felix. Dimitri weathers them alone when he can and loses sleep when he thinks about it too much. He tries different ways of chasing off the dead, who can’t seem to stop demanding answers of him. He follows Felix’s example and drinks, or he wanders until he’s exhausted, or he lies in bed, staring at the ceiling. Nothing really seems to work.

One night he comes to with a scream in his throat, his sheets twisted around him. He doesn’t know what he saw or why his heart is thudding in his chest. He doesn’t even know that Felix is there until he catches his breath and sees him standing at the foot of the bed.

“Are you all right?” Felix asks. His tone is flat, but Dimitri can see something in his eyes, illuminated by the moonlight that falls into the room from the window. He’s not exactly sure what it is, but it’s something he doesn’t usually see in Felix’s expressions.

Dimitri swallows hard, starts to push himself up from the mattress. The sheets are damp with sweat around him. “I don’t know.”

The sheets slip down around his waist, and he remembers, belatedly, that he’s not wearing any clothes. At all. He’d expected to spend the night alone in his bed. His eye flicks to Felix, and he notices Felix’s own eyes wandering downward.

Slowly—so slowly that Dimitri hardly dares to breathe—Felix circles the bed and gets into it beside him. He straddles Dimitri, his movements careful, calculated. His mouth is inches from Dimitri’s own when he speaks, his voice a low whisper. “Do you need a distraction?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Dimitri says. Felix moves in.

He lets his hands run all over Dimitri’s body, already bare as it is and warm, and Dimitri shivers at his touch. Felix, managing to free him from the sheets, starts to lay kisses down his chest and abdomen, stopping to press his face into Dimitri’s thigh. Dimitri knows there’s already a sheen of sweat across the skin there, and he wonders why Felix has paused in his ministrations.

“I don’t want you to spend your nights like this,” he says softly into Dimitri’s thigh.

Dimitri’s heart threatens to stop. “Like what?”

“Alone with only the company of your nightmares. It breaks me to think about it. I don’t want you to suffer like this.” Felix kisses his skin gently, once, twice. “I’ll share your bed as many nights as it takes if it means I don’t have to hear you screaming from down the hall anymore.”

“Felix—” Dimitri strokes a strand of hair out of Felix’s eyes. “I know we never talked about what happened, but I don’t—now isn’t really the time for—”

“I know,” Felix says, a little impatiently. “Just think about it, will you? Later, I mean.” He moves to the sensitive skin of Dimitri’s inner thigh and bites down. “I should hope your thoughts aren’t wandering for this.”

He kisses Dimitri’s skin all over, and when Dimitri begs him, he begins with his hands and then his mouth, moving while Dimitri cries out and tears at the sheets. Once Dimitri is sated, Felix lies beside him, and Dimitri offers up his own hands as well. Felix declines at first. Eventually, Dimitri convinces him that it’s all right, and brings Felix to his own conclusion, the sounds of which Felix muffles in Dimitri’s shoulder. Dimitri guesses he’ll have a bruise there in the morning. He doesn’t give a damn.

He has to work to convince Felix to stay the night as well, and, exhausted as he is, he isn’t sure he’ll succeed, but as he descends toward sleep he hears Felix murmur soothing words against his neck and feels his warmth, pleasurable and constant.

_For now,_ he thinks, _this is enough._

* * *

The next night that Felix finds him starts off much the same.

Dimitri is already facedown on his bed, crying into his pillow after waking from a particularly jarring nightmare. He can hear the voices of the dead calling for him even now. He almost doesn’t hear the door opening.

Felix is beside him before he can really make sense of it, rubbing the sweat-damp skin of his bare back, murmuring something that Dimitri only half hears. Slowly, Dimitri’s sobs taper off, and he sleepily concentrates only on Felix’s touch. Felix seems to sense the moment when Dimitri finally calms down. He presses a kiss to Dimitri’s shoulder blade.

“Felix . . .” Dimitri says, breathless.

“Yeah?”

“Will you lie with me, please?”

Something changes in Felix’s eyes, something that Dimitri is unable to identify in the moment. He studies Dimitri a moment. “Lie with you how?” he finally asks, keeping his voice low.

Dimitri rolls over onto his back, puts a hand on Felix’s hip to tug him closer. “The way that will make me forget,” he says. “Please, Felix.”

Felix puts a hand over Dimitri’s, and for a moment Dimitri thinks he’s going to say no, thinks he’s going to shut it down. “Only if you’re sure, Dima,” he whispers, positioning his body over Dimitri’s, all the while maintaining eye contact. “I don’t want you under any more stress.”

“I’m sure.” Dimitri runs his hands up and down Felix’s hips, his backside, his thighs, and Felix closes his eyes, at last, taking in his touch. He leans down to brush a kiss against Dimitri’s lips. Dimitri makes a low, appreciative noise.

He undresses Felix, as quickly as he can manage without Felix chastising him for moving too fast, being too reckless. He directs Felix to the small vial of oil hidden in one of the desk drawers. Felix takes it in silence, his assessing eyes watching over Dimitri as he comes back to the bed.

“You’re sure you can handle this much right now?” Felix asks. “If you need to stop, tell me, okay?”

“I’m fine,” Dimitri whispers. “I’m fine.”

It takes some time for Felix to help him prepare, but his slender swordsman’s hands are gentle and make all the right kinds of contact. When Felix pushes him down and slides into him, slowly— _finally_ —Dimitri is already halfway to losing himself. He arches up into Felix, whispers his name.

“This all right?” Felix asks.

Dimitri seizes one of his hands and brings it up, up, stopping so that Felix’s hand can rest on his neck. Felix’s face is mostly an impassive mask, but Dimitri can see the trace of worry there. “Here,” Dimitri says. He guides Felix’s other hand up to the opposite side of his throat. “While you do it.”

Felix studies him, his hands unmoving but applying no pressure. “You want me to . . . ?”

“I don’t want to feel . . .” Dimitri begins, and trails off. “I’m not asking you to make this my last breath, to stop my heart, Felix. I just want you to have . . . all of the control.”

“How will I know if I’ve gone too far?” Felix asks. There’s a note of fear in his voice, and Dimitri wishes he knew how to chase it away.

“I’ll let you know,” Dimitri says. He strokes a thumb over the back of one of Felix’s hands. “Like this.” He gives Felix’s hand a couple of taps with his own open hand. “Felix. Please.”

“Yeah,” Felix says, breathlessly, and Dimitri glimpses a trace of color in his cheeks. Before he can decode that, Felix is moving against him, his hands tightening on Dimitri’s neck. Dimitri chokes out a noise, but after that, he can barely breathe—Felix’s hands are at his throat, tense, clenching. Dimitri lifts his hips so that Felix can hit him at a better angle, but other than that, he can’t think beyond the pressure of Felix’s hands.

Felix doesn’t stop moving, doesn’t stop pressing his hands against Dimitri’s neck, and Dimitri feels himself getting closer to the edge, dulled though the sensation is by his lack of air. His lips form words—he thinks they must be _Felix, don’t stop, please_ —but they’re accompanied by no sound. Dimitri’s vision goes dark at the edges.

He reaches up for Felix’s hand, and wraps his other hand around himself. Felix is groaning into each of his movements. When Dimitri taps his hand to signal to him to let up, Felix does, and his pace accelerates. Dimitri, gasping, reaches his climax, crying out as soon as he finds the breath.

Felix slides his hands down Dimitri’s chest as he finishes, grasping Dimitri’s waist hard enough to bruise. Dimitri, lets his head fall to the side, his eye drift closed. Felix slaps his cheek lightly.

“Hey. Dima. I didn’t kill you, did I?”

“You didn’t,” Dimitri says, easing his eye open to gaze at Felix. Felix’s hair falls in damp strands around his face, and his cheeks are flushed. He’s beautiful. “That felt so . . . so good.”

“I’m glad it did,” Felix says. He collapses on top of Dimitri, his face pressed into Dimitri’s neck. “Just know I—” He pauses and kisses Dimitri’s skin. “I don’t want to see you take your last breath right now, Dima.”

Dimitri hums softly. “I appreciate it,” he says, one hand coming to rest between Felix’s shoulder blades. “I think I love you . . .”

Felix stiffens, though he tries to hide it. He stays where he is, on top of Dimitri, not even having pulled out yet. “You what?”

“You’re the only stability I can find anymore,” Dimitri murmurs. “I’m sorry. Was that out of line? Should I have kept it to myself?” He opens his eye to study Felix’s confused expression.

“No,” Felix says. “Might be a little soon, but no.” He leans in to kiss Dimitri full on the mouth. “Something’s telling me I . . .” He trails off. “Yeah, uh. It’s a little soon for that.”

Dimitri is quiet for a moment. “Will you stay?”

“Of course I will.”

“You’ve never stayed until morning. . . .”

“That’s because you sleep too much,” Felix says, sounding more like himself. “I have things to do. If I stay here with you until you wake up, someone might figure it out.”

Dimitri sighs. “Someday,” he says. He runs his thumb over Felix’s lips. “Maybe you can stay all night.”

“I hope so,” Felix murmurs. “I’ll stay as long as I can, okay?”

Dimitri murmurs affirmation and pulls him back down.

* * *

After that night, Dimitri commits to healing again. He asks some of the others to keep watch over his door, to come in or to call for Felix to subdue him when things get bad. He doesn’t feel so embarrassed asking this of Byleth, but with some of the others—Sylvain, Ingrid—he feels weak asking them to take care of him. Still, they agree readily, and that much is a weight off his chest.

One afternoon after these discussions, Ingrid finds him standing outside the cathedral. She approaches, calling his name, giving him a chance to dismiss her. He doesn’t. He turns to look at her, and she stands beside him, looking nervous but at the same time glad to see him improving.

“Dimitri,” she begins, “can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Are you . . . seeing someone now?” she asks. “I’ve heard . . . rumors, I guess you could call them. That there’s someone sharing your bed.”

Dimitri feels a spike of ice shoot up his chest and throat. _Rumors?_ “Oh—Ingrid, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to cause all of—”

“No, no, please, don’t worry about that.” She shakes her head. “It’s only that I wanted to make sure that you and whoever it is were doing all right. Besides, I haven’t seen you with anyone, not publicly. Do you two mean to keep it a secret? Or were you planning on making it official at some point?”

Dimitri blinks. “Well . . . it’s mostly just been . . . behind closed doors,” he says, haltingly. “I’m not sure if he . . . feels the same way that I do. Or if he wants to make it official. Maybe he’ll leave me after the war.”

“Have you told him how you feel?”

“Yes.” Dimitri looks away. “He said it was too soon. I’m not sure that he wants me to be anything more than a . . .” He trails off.

“Dimitri?” she asks, and when he turns to look at her again, he sees hesitation in her expression, apprehension. “Do you mind if I ask a rather personal question?” He gestures for her to go ahead. They’ve already made it this far, after all. “Is it Felix that you’re sleeping with?”

“H-how did you know?”

A small smile lights her face. “Sylvain was actually the one who thought you two might be sleeping together. I wasn’t sure if he was right, but . . . Felix has seemed different lately. We knew something must have happened, but we weren’t sure what.”

Dimitri laughs. “I’m impressed. Although I suppose I should have expected as much from you and Sylvain.”

“Felix is awful with emotions, you know,” Ingrid says. “I’m sure he feels something for you, Dimitri. He probably just doesn’t know how to say it. And if he doesn't feel anything, well. You should get him to tell you that, too, and then I’ll go beat the hell out of him.”

“All right.” Dimitri can’t help but laugh again. “You’re probably right. You and Sylvain. I . . . I know how hard Felix works to hide what he feels. Asking him directly is probably the only thing left to do.” Ingrid nods, smiling encouragingly at him. “And Ingrid . . . Thank you.”

“No problem at all,” she says. “It’s what friends are for, isn’t it?”

* * *

Felix and Dimitri stand together in one of the wide-open fields outside the monastery, looking out at the horizon. Dimitri, tired of the cathedral, had come here first. Felix must have followed him. He’d arrived later, quietly, with not much more than a softly-whispered “Dima” and a touch of his hand to Dimitri’s own. Neither of them has said a word since. Dimitri is afraid of ruining this moment.

But the sun is sinking, and Dimitri is more afraid of letting Felix leave him without any words passing between them. “Felix,” he says, at last, “did you mean it, that night, when you said you would stay as many nights as it takes?”

Felix doesn’t turn to look at him. “I suppose.”

“Felix. If you didn’t mean it, you can tell me. I won’t . . . I won’t do anything rash. I just want to know.”

After several heartbeats, Felix’s eyes shift sideways, so that he’s looking at Dimitri, and Dimitri sees the slight flush on his cheeks. Oh, _goddess_ , Dimitri hasn’t seen Felix blush in so many years, and seeing it now nearly brings him to his knees. Felix feels _something._ The relief of that knowledge is incredibly strong.

“I meant it,” Felix says. “Although if you say much more about me sharing your bed, I might start to think about having my way with you here and now.”

Dimitri gathers him into his arms and kisses his jaw. “I wouldn’t even mind,” he says, his voice choked.

“Don’t go getting emotional on me now, Dimitri,” Felix says, but his arms snake around Dimitri’s torso, hands finding the small of his back. “Or I'll . . . start feeling some things too.”

Felix’s voice threatens to break, and Dimitri only holds him tighter, fighting back tears. He’s not really sure what kind of tears they are, or why he’s on the verge of crying. But his chest feels so tight, and he can’t even bear the idea of letting go of Felix.

The wave of emotion passes, and Dimitri lets up, pressing a kiss to Felix’s cheek. The look in Felix’s amber eyes is sincere, but he fakes a pout. “You should be careful about how tight you hold me, Dimitri,” he says, “with the kind of strength you’ve got.”

Dimitri feels his lips curve into a smile, but the tears fall readily now. “If I ever hurt you, Felix, you need only say the word. I promise. I will do all that I can to keep you safe.”

Felix makes an indifferent noise in the back of his throat, but it’s clearly only for show. He cups Dimitri’s face in his hands and pulls him down for a kiss. Dimitri finds his lips wet, but doesn’t have the hands to spare to wipe his tears away, as they’re both on Felix’s waist.

“I love you,” Felix says when he draws back. “Dimitri.”

Dimitri blinks back another wave of tears. “I love you too, Felix, _goddess_ , I love you so damn much,” he says, voice like a gasp, fingers curling in Felix’s cloak. “Can you promise me you’ll stay?”

For a moment, Felix doesn’t say anything. Dimitri’s heart stutters. He braces for the _no_ , but when Felix’s eyes slide up to meet his, there’s a new depth of emotion in them, one whose force could knock Dimitri clear off his feet.

“Yes,” Felix says at last. “I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> i imagine that sometime after this fic ends, felix gives dimitri a ring. their friends learn of their engagement and congratulate them hhhhhh
> 
> i hang out on twitter sometimes [@iridiumring92](https://twitter.com/iridiumring92)


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